


Agreement

by blacktofade



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe, Banter, Dragon Slayers, Dragons, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 01:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3363413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacktofade/pseuds/blacktofade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iron Bull is a dragon-slayer and Dorian is a dragon. Absolutely nothing could go wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Agreement

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Ordinaryink](http://ordinaryink.tumblr.com/)'s birthday a few days ago. We text about the most terrible AUs (AKA: the best AUs) and this was one of them that I couldn't get out of my head. Help me. This game is killing me.

The beast is still asleep when Dorian pushes himself out of bed. He’s a great brute of a Tal-Vashoth with a talented tongue, if only for deeds of an in flagrante delicto nature. He even snores half as loudly as he copulates.

Dorian pauses long enough to grimace. The night had been fun, more so than Dorian had expected, but he's sore in places he can't even reach. He’s never been with someone so strong; the sex had been acrobatic to put it lightly. He’d had his legs in positions they’d never been in before and there’d been a long moment after he’d _met the maker_ as it were, where he hadn’t been entirely sure about which way was up.

Qunari aren’t Dorian’s specialty. He knows enough of their history to sound vaguely educated, but with a little prying, anyone would be able to see straight through the façade. But Dorian _does_ have a thing for collecting, and a collection is precisely where the beast of a man in his bed belongs.

The Qunari had had a nickname — something extravagant and highly unseemly, possibly involving a bull. He’d also been adamant about including an article before it, even when Dorian had been gasping it into his pillows on the brink of blowing apart. It was as though the man thought himself to be some highly prized relic from Andraste herself. Though maybe he was, but Dorian wouldn’t be staying long enough to find out.

He pauses to ensure the brute continues sleeping and then he slips back into his robes — the ones that have spent the night wadded up and discarded on the floor — and pads quietly out of the room. Of course Dorian has refined taste and it’s just not feasible to steal away an entire man, which is why Dorian carefully combs through the man’s residence instead, searching for the perfect additions to his collection. He slips a few things here and there into his pockets — a ring that’s large enough to fit on a body part that isn’t a finger, a small scroll containing what appears to be a poem or possibly a crude limerick in Qunlat, a patch that might be a spare for the one the Tal-Vashoth wears over one eye.

They’re items that may be missed, or may already be long forgotten about. But his hunger for a prize outweighs the heaviness of his conscience.

Tucked in a corner of the kitchen, there’s a small tabby cat with one ear and half a tail that it wags in irritation as it follows Dorian with a steady gaze. Dorian has never been one for animals; too unpredictable. And they never seem to get along with his kind anyway.

He gives the old mog a wide berth and quickly searches the rest of the area, tucking away anything that catches his eye. He’s quick and quiet — the complete opposite of how he is once between the sheets, as proven earlier that night — and before the old, barely running clock in the hallway ticks past the hour, Dorian already has his fill of personal trophies and is slipping out of the front door.

He’ll be across the land before the brute even wakes enough to wonder where he is. Dorian has it down to an artform now, something he’s endlessly proud of. He won’t be missed and the Qunari won’t make an effort to follow; none of them ever do.

*

Three days later, the Qunari beast finds him and for the first time in Dorian’s seven hundred and fifty two years of existence, he’s taken by surprise. He’s so surprised that he isn’t even given enough time to slip out of his true form, which means he faces the one-eyed brute as a brute himself.

“I was told I’d find you here,” he says to Dorian, who carefully tucks his tail closer and lets the electric in his throat fizzle to life, buzzing beneath his skin, just waiting for him to exhale it out and fry the Qunari where he stands.

“Strange,” Dorian drawls, a rumbling tone to his voice than he can’t help. “I thought I ate those gossiping little birdies.”

“And yet here I am,” the man says with a casual enough shrug for Dorian to almost believe it.

“What is it they say about being bull-headed?” Dorian says instead and the Qunari tilts his head and grins in a way that reminds Dorian of exactly how that mouth felt against him.

“So you _do_ remember.”

“It was a metal, was it not?” Dorian asks. “Bronze Bull?”

“Iron Bull,” the Bull corrects. “ _The_ Iron Bull.”

“Ah yes,” Dorian says with a large smile, showing off the rows of razor sharp teeth he’s fond of. “You were quite adamant about that part, weren’t you?”

“Why sell yourself short?” Iron Bull asks. “For instance, I think you could really add something by including a hint to your true form. Dorian the Dragon has quite the ring to it.”

“Why spoil the surprise?” Dorian asks, dipping his head down lower to be level with Iron Bull.

“It’s the last thing I expected,” Iron Bull admits to him. “Though I also didn’t expect you to steal half of my belongings. Was there anything in my house that you _didn’t_ touch?”

“Your cat wasn’t too fond of me. I doubt she would have allowed me to pet her.”

“Catsonova is a good judge of character.”

“Unfortunate about the name,” Dorian muses aloud, earning a grin from Bull.

“Besides the point,” Bull tells him, taking a step forwards that would most likely be intimidating were Dorian not a dragon. “The point is that I’m here for my possessions.”

“Including the court jester trousers?”

“ _Specifically for_ the court jester trousers,” the Bull corrects with a quirk of his eyebrow. “They are _mine_.”

Dorian blows out a long breath and carefully shifts once more into his human form, bones cracking and protective scales slipping away into thin, fragile skin. It makes him feel vulnerable, but for a reason he cannot fathom, he feels he owes it to the Iron Bull to face him as an equal, if only for the image of equality.

He’s not ashamed of his nakedness; it’s not like Bull hasn’t already seen every part of him anyways, but he grabs a nearby sheet — one that’s actually from a cupboard in Bull’s home — and drapes it around his shoulders. Iron Bull’s eyes drag down his body, not even attempting to hide his appreciation of Dorian’s appearance.

“Unfortunately, we dragons don’t appreciate our hoards being taken from us,” Dorian says, letting it linger as a threat while the Bull finally meets his gaze again.

“And I don’t appreciate dragons taking my belongings to begin with.”

Dorian smiles tightly and straightens his back, not allowing the Bull to intimidate him.

“It seems we’re at an impasse,” Dorian tells him and the Bull tilts his head.

“It must be fate,” he tells Dorian, who’s momentarily confused.

“And how do you figure that?”

Slowly, Bull turns his forearm out and reveals a set of small lines that appear to be a tally system.

“These? They happen to be the other dragons that crossed my path.”

Dorian doesn’t let his smile falter, but his heart seems to skip a beat as he belatedly realizes that the Bull is a dragon slayer — the likes of which he does his best to avoid.

“Ah,” Dorian says quietly. “And you’re hoping to add another mark to your _impressively large_ score?”

Strangely, Iron Bull shakes his head.

“Not if I don’t have to.”

“Perhaps the notch in your bedpost will suffice instead,” Dorian suggests and the corner of Bull’s mouth quirks slightly.

“Perhaps,” he agrees gently. “I would also accept the return of the ring you stole from me. And maybe my trousers. Solid colors don’t do me any favors.”

Dorian wouldn’t necessarily agree; he happens to think Bull looks positively edible in the burgundy trousers he’s wearing.

“The ring?” Dorian questions instead and the Bull nods.

“A gift from a friend. I should not like to part with it, but I am willing to take it by force.”

“A compromise then?”

Iron Bull raises both eyebrows.

“The compromise is that I don’t strike you down where you stand.”

“Or,” Dorian suggests. “I return to you what you seek and you give me what _I_ seek.”

Bull folds his arms, biceps bulging pleasantly.

“And what, pray tell, is it that you seek?”

Dorian trails his gaze along Bull’s body, remembering the feel of it against his own; the roughness of his skin, but the softness of his touch.

“Another treasure,” Dorian says, eyes still fixated on the Bull’s chest and the scars crisscrossing the pale skin.

The laugh the Bull lets out is loud and full and makes Dorian want to smile in the same way a plague is contagious.

“You want sex?” Bull asks, clearly not ashamed, but Dorian shakes his head.

“No, I can find sex in other places,” Dorian tells him. “But you. You are not so easy to find.”

“One of a kind,” the Bull admits. “But I will be honest that I prefer my home to cold, damp caves, even ones decorated as lavishly as yours.”

“I could always visit,” Dorian murmurs and Bull nods.

“That you could.”

There’s a long pause between them, neither one breaking the silence until Dorian tips his head to acknowledge the agreement.

“I should find the ring for you then,” he says as the Bull nods.

“Don’t forget the trousers.”

“How could I?” Dorians asks, a tang of sarcasm on his tongue.

“Yet you didn’t remember _me_ ,” Bull points out, sounding vaguely offended.

“Perhaps you need to give me something _to_ remember.”

Dorian isn’t going to make it known that he’s still carrying a handful of bruises from the Bull’s strong grip. Maybe he’ll find out for himself soon enough anyway.

Iron Bull offers up a leer that alone is enough to make Dorian remember what it was like to have those lips on him.

“I could,” the Bull agrees.

Dorian offers up his own smirk.

“Then perhaps it’s not such an impasse after all. What an unlikely duo.”

The Bull nods, but the smile doesn’t drop from his face.

“We’ll be the talk of the town.”

Dorian reaches behind him into an alcove where Iron Bull’s ring sits modestly, and holds it out for the Bull to take.

“Good,” Dorian tells him, watching Bull take the proffered jewelry. “Let them talk. I’m rather fond of gossip.”

The Bull pockets the ring and takes another step forward.

“And the pants?”

Dorian’s eyes drop to his waistband and he bares his teeth in a predatory smile.

“Perhaps a trade?” he suggests. “You will have to shed these before you can wear the others.”

Iron Bull seems to see through his thinly veiled attempt at seduction and he reaches for his belt — the only thing keeping his pants up — and starts to unbuckle it.

“Historians should take note,” Bull says, pausing briefly. “This may be the first time a dragon and a dragon slayer ever agree.”

“I’m glad we could come to an agreement.”

“Neither of us has come yet,” Iron Bull points out and Dorian grins, belatedly realizing that maybe he’s misjudged this man.

It may be a lot more fun than he ever dreamed.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to see me spiral into madness, come hang out on [Tumblr](http://blacktofade.tumblr.com/)


End file.
